The consensus in the British Touring Car Championship is that Ash Sutton is a staggering talent – as good as any who starred in the peak Super Touring era – but that he’s prone to the odd case of overreaching, the occasional mistake. But at Knockhill last weekend, he was almost literally walking on water.
This time, two race wins went begging but arguably neither of them was the three-time champion’s fault or down to any shortcoming. It was purely thanks to bad timing and circumstance in a dry-then-wet-then-very-wet opener that Sutton should have won, Josh Cook could have won, Tom Ingram did win before having it taken away, and Jake Hill finally claimed despite never being in front. Hill subsequently doubled up in a thrilling second-race battle with Sutton in dry weather that brought back memories of their sensational antics in 2022. And then Sutton did his Sutton thing, driving his Motorbase Performance Ford Focus ST to the front and away in streaming conditions in the finale.
This all means that from what he’d thought was disaster after the opening race – he’d lost the championship lead to temporary winner Ingram – Sutton now leads the reigning champion Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N star by 37 points as we head into the final three rounds.
Those doubts over Sutton’s ability to harvest points had been raised following his first-lap exits from the reversed-grid finales at the previous two rounds, Oulton Park
